Family Ties
by d60kit
Summary: Narcissa struggles with the role she has chosen for herself.


Disclaimer: None of it is mine.

---

Narcissa bites back a yelp as she feels teeth sink into her hand. She finally manages to force the potion between the girl's lips and waits as the accusing eyes glaring up at her quickly go blank. Bella is not going to be happy that she has ruined the fun but it is better this way. She brushes a stray strand of pink hair off the girl's face.

'Yes, it's much better like this.'

-

_It had been Bella's plan of course. Narcissa had not dared to object because it had been three weeks and five days since the battle at Hogwarts and still she had no news of her son. So she helped her sister take someone else's child and if this girl told them something useful maybe someone would finally tell Narcissa something in return. Bella insisted that they can get information on both the Order and the Ministry's plans and they will be favoured by the Dark Lord once more. Narcissa suspected that her sister's choice of a victim is not quite so simple. Bella wanted to punish another traitor the way she had already punished Sirius and Reggie._

_-_

'You gave her veritaserum!' Bella's voice is a snarl. 'She was so close to breaking and you've ruined it!'

The fury in her sister's eyes startles Narcissa as she is only used to seeing it directed at other people.

'It's taking too long. Let's just get this over with.' Please.

-

_There had been one thought running through Narcissa's mind the entire time. This could be Draco. It could be Draco and Bella would still have that terrible glint in her eyes. This girl was not that much older than Narcissa's own son, although the defiant set of her face suggested she has already seen too much of this war. Far more than her mother would have liked. Narcissa of all people understands that._

_-_

'We have to wait for the potion to wear off now.' Bella is starting to look excited again and that is never good. 'I want her to know what's coming…'

Narcissa feels sick.

-

_The girl's wedding ring had startled Narcissa. She had noticed it in one of the few moments she had dared look up, when Bella had torn herself away from her prey to reply to a message from their master. She had seen the ring, thought of Lucius still trapped in Azkaban and for a moment her curiosity got the better of her. It was dangerous to think of this girl having a name, a family or a husband, but she asked the girl who her husband was all the same. Of course she had not got an answer. Not even Bella had got answers yet, although that was surely only a matter of time._

_-_

The girl's blank look is fading now and Bella's eyes are almost glowing. Something inside Narcissa is screaming at her.

-

_The ring was nothing flashy, nothing compared to what Lucius had given Narcissa, but Narcissa suddenly could not keep her eyes from it because in another life she could have attended this girl's wedding. She had to quickly remind herself who the girl's father was and that this girl had probably made as terrible a choice as her mother. In fact she even looked like her mother by then. Somewhere along the way she had become too weak to keep up her chosen appearance and her hair had faded to Andi's chestnut locks, her eyes taking on that dark Black shade. Narcissa could almost imagine that it was her lost sister lying before her and she was sure that Bella was imagining the same and taking some extra pleasure from it._

_However there were still a few defiant streaks of pink remaining, like that lock of hair that kept falling across the girl's eyes. She decided that the girl had the Black spirit despite the polluting influence of her mudblood father. There was definitely the defiance of Andi or Sirius, or even Bella in her own way. Narcissa herself seemed to have missed out on that trait. She and Regulus, the babies of the family, had not rebelled; they had simply done as they were bidden. They had done it well because they were Blacks but it had not saved him and she was beginning to doubt if it would help her. She had tried to be a good daughter, wife, mother but she wondered if she had made some terrible mistake somewhere along the way. Narcissa glanced up at the scene before her, quickly turned her gaze back down to the floor and decided that maybe her family was simply cursed. It was far too late to change anything now._

_-_

This is finally the end. Bella's excitement radiates from her while Narcissa feels strangely calm about what is about to happen. Killing your own flesh and blood is perhaps the most horrific of crimes, the kind only a Black is capable of. She sees the wand raising in front of her, closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. She hears those two deadly words in a voice that sounds like hersbut different somehow, then there is the sound of a body hitting the floor and she opens her eyes. The girl stares wide-eyed at her and, courage fading, Narcissa turns away rather than look at the lifeless body on the floor. What has she done?

Long minutes drag by and the girl still has not moved. Narcissa steels herself and turns back around. She steps over her sister's body and roughly pulls the half-conscious girl to her feet. If they leave now maybe someone else will be blamed and maybe Draco will not be punished.

It has been years since Narcissa looked up this address so she hopes the couple have not moved since then. She does not know why she ever found it since she has neither visited it nor betrayed it to anyone, but now she is very glad she did.

She has to disappear now, to somewhere people will not know her as either a Malfoy or a Black. She is sure she would know if her son were no longer living. She knows he is alive and she needs to find him without putting him in any more danger than he is already in. And she has go alone so she half drags, half carries the girl up the path and deposits her on the doorstep, propped against a wall. Of course she immediately slumps and knocks over a pot plant and as the noise cuts through the silent air, Narcissa realises she only has a moment.

She turns the girl's face to look at her, drawing on her Black blood and making her voice as commanding as she possibly can,

'You owe me. If the time comes I want you to protect my son.'

She is turning away, ready to disappear when the girl's hoarse voice stops her.

'Don't leave. We can protect you.'

Narcissa feels a bitter smile spreading across her face. She would love to believe that there is hope for her but she knows that she has left her act of rebellion many years too late.

It is as though the girl reads her thoughts,

'It's not too late.'

Narcissa knows she should be leaving now but her feet will not seem to move. She is still standing there, frozen half-turned on the garden path, when her last remaining sister opens the door.

-


End file.
